In Praise of Stan Collender

I learned today that my friend and former co-blogger Stan Collender passed away on Friday. James Hagerty has a thoughtful obituary in The Wall Street Journal today.

It was very early on in my blogging that I discovered Stan's writing on the budget. There are many writers who are deficit hawks at heart and know about the budget in fairly general terms. Some of us can even write coherently for an audience on budget matters. Stan was a fellow traveler, but he brought so much more to the discussion -- an impressive command of the details, a keen sense of the political strategy underlying "Budget Battles," and a wit as sharp and quick as any you will find. He will be missed.

There and Back Again

Happy New Year!  After nearly four very interesting years group-blogging at Capital Gains and Games, I am back to the solo gig.  My archives from CGG and VoxBaby are linked above and are searchable along with this blog's archives on the sidebar.  So grab the feed and a cold drink -- at some point this year, somebody might make policy in Washington that merits our attention.

Moving to Capital Gains and Games

After several years of blogging on my own at Vox Baby, I am joining Stan Collender and Pete Davis over at the newly redesigned Capital Gains and Games blog. Stan and Pete are two of the sharpest people writing about fiscal policy and financial matters, and so you should expect triple the fun at half the price.


The new feed is http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/rss.xml, so set your bookmarks and feed readers accordingly.


Vox Baby will remain intact, so there's no need to change any links.


See you over at Capital Gains and Games.

Let Me Not Rephrase That

From the preface to the second (1996) edition of The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, with my highlighting:

Authors naturally hope that their books will have lasting rather than ephemeral impact. But any advocate, in addition to putting the timeless part of his case, must also respond to contemporary advocates of opposing, or apparently opposing, points of view. There is a risk that some of these arguments, however hotly they may rage today, will seem terribly dated in decades to come. The paradox has often been noted that the first edition of The Origin of Species makes a better case than the sixth. This is because Darwin felt obliged, in his later editions, to respond to contemporary criticisms of his first edition, criticisms which now seem so dated that the replies to them merely get in the way, and in places even mislead. Nevertheless, the temptation to ignore fashionable contemporary criticisms that one suspects of being nine days' wonders is a temptation that should not be indulged, for reasons of courtesy not just to the critics but to their otherwise confused readers. Though I have my own private ideas on which chapters of my book will eventually prove ephemeral for this reason, the reader--and time--must judge.

Sometimes, your first argument is your best argument, and rephrasing it in response to a confused question, comment, or critique only weakens it.

CBO Joins the Blogosphere

As if being a CBO Director weren't time consuming enough, Peter Orszag has joined the blogosphere:

What are you likely to read on this blog? First, you will learn more about CBO — the types of work we do, how we do it, and more about the outstanding analysts we have. For example, when we come out with a new report or important cost estimate, I may write a bit about the analytical substance and also introduce you to the key staff who took the lead in the analysis. Second, CBO’s research and cost estimates are often discussed extensively in the media and elsewhere — and not surprisingly, from time to time misunderstandings or misinterpretations arise about some analysis we have done. In those kinds of situations, I will use the blog to further explain our work and address possible or potential misunderstanding. Finally, when it seems appropriate, I will use the blog to link our work to relevant outside research from academic or other institutions that may shed additional light on the challenging issues the Congress is working to address.

CBO's website was already very helpful. This makes it even better. Bookmark it today.

TimesSelect, We Hardly Knew You

I remember the day I subscribed to TimesSelect. I couldn't critique the opinions I wanted to without forking over the money. And it was also my prophecy this spring that, "Eventually, we all blog for Google." The two have collided, and the former has died. Felix Salmon lays out the details.

I thought TimesSelect was a wonderful thing. It imposed a $50 per year tax on a readership whose opinions were almost certain to be opposite of mine. I'm going to miss it.

Retroblogging Hawaii

The Voxfamily just returned from a week in Hawaii. I leave the blogging at home on family vacations, so I'll share some of the experience this week.

We spent the whole week on Oahu, which contains about 80 percent of the state's population. We stayed at the biggest resort in Waikiki, which was a wonderful place. Since we live in Hanover, we have no need to "get away from it all" on vacation. We actually like to be among people and on this trip deliberately tried to avoid an isolated feeling. Even so, I found each place we visited to be not quite unspoiled, but far less crowded than I expected for the first week of summer.

It seems like I am not alone in my assessment. This story from last week's USA Today reports that convention bookings at the new Hawaii Convention Center (shown below) are down.

According to the story:

Even paradise, it seems, can have a down year.

Only 16 out-of-state conventions are booked in 2008 for the $350 million Hawaii Convention Center, which was built by the state on the edge of Waikiki nine years ago to attract more business conferences.

The number is less than half the 35 conventions that are booked for 2007. In 2006, there were 37.

The culprits? The story continues:

Waikiki's hotel prices, second in the country only to New York City's, are a contributing factor, says Paul Brewbaker, Bank of Hawaii's chief economist.

Through May, the average room rate in Hawaii was more than $198 a night, according to consultants Hospitality Advisors, based in Hawaii.

The high prices seem to be having an impact on quantity:

Hawaiian tourism has been virtually flat the past several years. The state welcomed about 7.5 million visitors in both 2005 and 2006, according to the state Department of Business Economic Development & Tourism. This year, it forecasts 7.6 million visitors.

However, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization predicts that overall tourism numbers will actually drop by 0.2% this year.

Meanwhile, overall tourism to the United States has steadily grown since 2003. Last year, the USA received 51.1 million tourists, and officials expect a 3% increase this year. Kathryn Goldstein, spokeswoman for Meeting Professionals International, a Dallas-based trade group, said concerns over Hawaii as a convention location might depend on the issues facing a specific group.

So look for prices of trips to the Aloha State to fall over time.

Eventually, We All Blog for Google

Yesterday, the Rockefeller Center hosted a blogging panel, moderated by John Hinderaker of Powerline and comprised of Ann Althouse, Brendan Nyhan, Laura Clawson, Roger Simon, Joe Malchow, and Andrew Seal. It was a very productive discussion.

I came away with two main points. First, as noted particularly by Nyhan, Clawson, and Seal, there is very little that is inherent in blogging that makes it a superior form of commentary to traditional forms. We should think of them as complementary, and, as some of the other panelists pointed out, incremental to traditional media. The lower cost of blogging as compared to other media outlets means that the set of people who can contribute is much wider. There have been episodes where it has been a blogger, possibly in conjunction with blog readers, who has brought to light new information that would have otherwise been missed. Most of the time, this is not happening, and there is very little that is new in blogs. Good writers get bigger audiences, just like any other form of writing. But it is nice to have another mechanism that can occasionally make a critical difference.

Second, I began to think about what happens to blogs after the current events fade in importance. Well, then each post is just a webpage, and to a reasonable approximation, all webpages are eventually relevant only insofar as they attract the attention of search engines. I noted in one of my very first posts that I found Powerline about four years ago because I was searching for an explanation of a news story. In other words, I found them through Google. At some point, Google organizes everything in the blogosphere around what people years from now will find interesting and worth searching.

UPDATE: The D has a nice writeup of the event here.

Speaking of Google Searches (and Lack of Seriousness)

This post of mine is the first one listed, out of tens of million results, for

show me how to make a baby

Although I do think the VoxSon and VoxDaughter are exemplary, I wasn't aware that this was evident from my blogging. Nor was I previously aware of such a link between income inequality and fertility.

You Have a Face for Blogging

This is my new favorite blogging site: http://bloggingheads.tv. Take some of your favorite bloggers, remove their ability to edit their posts to make them sensible, and put them on a split screen in pairs. It's better than most cable news programs, but that's not saying much ...

Enjoy!

Can the Internet Be Saved?

So asks Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor of Journalism and Ethics at Washington and Lee University, in an editorial in last week's Miami Herald. His conclusion, predictably, is "Yes, but it won't save itself."

He begins with some discussion of "bloggers for hire" by political candidates, not all of whom disclosed such relationships. But he also provides some examples of manufactured grassroots interest in the business sector, under the heading "Deceit shamed off line:"

Sony launched a website that was supposed to look like a spontaneous, grass-roots effort by fans of its new PSP play station. The site was exposed, Sony shut it down. Wal-Mart's publicists bankrolled a site called Wal-Marting Across America, which posed as a journalistic travelogue compiled by a pair of intrepid souls -- one of them a Washington Post photographer -- who made their way cross-country to chronicle the lives and dreams of clean-living Wal-Mart folk.

Both cases were notable successes of Internet self-regulation; deceit was shamed off line. Nobody can say, though, how much tainted content goes undetected and whether it violates anything beyond basic trust. The Federal Trade Commission this month ruled on a complaint by Commercial Alert, the advocacy group, that so-called buzz marketing -- in which shills pose as ordinary consumers to talk up products to the unsuspecting -- is improperly deceptive.

But the FTC's ruling was a flabby one, and it has no clear application to Internet shams. The average person has no way to know whether those passionate pseudonyms who upload videos to YouTube or commentary to websites are civilians expressing themselves or paid agents.

If regulation from outside is no help, maybe the solution is tougher regulation from inside. A group called the Media Bloggers Association, led by veteran blogger Robert Cox, is pushing for greater professionalization among blogmasters though training about legal and ethical obligations, which Cox is hopeful of offering through the Poynter Institute, a highly regarded mid-career journalists academy in St. Petersburg, Fla.

In time, Cox suggests, the result could be bloggers whose professional credentials warrant the same accreditation that mainstream journalists now qualify for.

I was not aware of the two examples, but I think that the cure could very well be worse than the disease. I shudder at the thought of external regulation and professionalization. Licensing of the sort proposed is often a medium for a select group to stifle competition.

Consider two examples of fraud in the traditional media that were "shamed off the traditional media" by bloggers: the Dan Rather "fake but accurate" national guard memos in 2004 and the doctoring of the Reuters photographs of the bombings in Lebanon this summer.

As a matter of policy, any time we think that more regulation, particularly government regulation would be of use, we should ask ourselves whether more competition wouldn't be better. It won't always be the case, but I think that in this instance, the cure for the problems on the Internet is more competition, not less.

Our ulimate objective is to be able to disseminate the truth, as rapidly and widely as possible. I do not see how we can approach that goal--particularly with the traditional media doing as poor a job as they are currently doing--by clamping down on new media venues, insulating the traditional media from competition. If complete decentralization of control of the Internet is the way we ensure competition and thus accountability where it truly matters, then the fakeries Wasserman discusses are an unfortunate but unavoidable cost.

Two Years of Blogging

My two-year blogiversary passed last week, but I have been too busy with presentations and travels to acknowledge it sooner. Looking back over that period, I'm most pleased with the blogging I've done about Social Security. These posts lay out what I think is a reasonable way forward on the coming demographic challenges.

I was pleased to read in yesterday's speech that Ben Bernanke recognizes the challenges in the same way, as the need for more savings today, even if he doesn't propose any particular solution. But I've also noticed some other things that are a bit more disturbing about my blogging.

As much as I might like to think otherwise, I am not successful in overcoming my biases. The problem is not so much in what I write about some topics, but which topics I choose to write about. For example, I am only moved to post about something Paul Krugman has written when I disagree with it. It's not that I haven't written accurately about his columns (in my opinion), but that I don't post when I agree with him. For example, in his August 28 column, "Broken Promises," he writes (with respect to the lack of progress one year after Hurricane Katrina):

Apologists for the administration will doubtless claim that blame for the lack of progress rests not with Mr. Bush, but with the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracies. That's the great thing about being an antigovernment conservative: even when you fail at the task of governing, you can claim vindication for your ideology.

The part I've italicized is the single best description of what's wrong with the current leadership in Washington--the White House and the Congress--that I've read. And it's taken me six weeks to note it formally. That's a problem. To the extent that I continue to blog, I'm going to need to fix it.

Note to Self: Read More of Ezra Klein

His commentary on the Krugman-induced inequality debate is very good, in "Who's To Blame for Inequality?" On the role of governments, his conclusion strikes me as reasonable, even if I disagree to some extent with the normative statements he makes at the very end:

It's also worth saying that government is far more effective as a check on inequality than as an accelerant. Various trends, some pernicious (corporate greed, union decline), some not (technology, globalization, single mother families), contribute to inequality. What government can do is tax and redistribute in such a way that growth is shared equally across society. During conservative moments, it doesn't even make an effort to do that, and society is the worse for it.

And he has been raising this very provacative idea--that Hillary Clinton should try to succeed Harry Reid, not George W. Bush. From the Los Angeles Times, with "The Job Sen. Clinton Should Want:"

Before running through her qualifications for the job, it's worth explaining why she'd want it in the first place. After all, Clinton is the unquestioned front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president. She commands an unmatched war chest, an unrivaled collection of political talent (headed by her legendarily adroit husband) and star power that most putative candidates can only dream of.

But if her candidacy gleams in theory, its reality looks a little dimmer each day. Clinton is a polarizing figure, commanding a strong base of support but little room for growth. A CBS News poll in late July found her favorables at 32% and her unfavorables at 39% — a worrying ratio for a figure so well established in the public mind.

Many of her potential competitors score far better on likeability indices, notably John Edwards, who's turned his charm into a 4% lead in the crucial early presidential caucus state, Iowa. More troubling for Clinton, Democratic leaders have shuffled the caucus and primary schedule, placing Nevada after Iowa and South Carolina after New Hampshire. Nevada is essentially one big union town, mainly through the hotel workers union Unite Here, which Edwards is closely allied with. Then comes New Hampshire, where Clinton is ahead by single digits, and then South Carolina — Edwards' birth state, which he won in 2004. It's a series tailor-made for Edwards, and thus daunting for Clinton.

Worse yet, the blogs — the weathervane of the emergent left — can't stand Clinton. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, proprietor of the liberal megasite Daily Kos, even took to the Washington Post to write of his distaste. And her problems don't stop with the primaries — surveys show she routinely loses to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in head-to-head matchups.

So whatever the hype, Clinton's path to the presidency isn't an easy one. But the road to Senate leadership may be. Clinton possesses qualities that could turn the thankless, grueling realities of congressional preeminence into something glamorous and powerful. She's a human megaphone, for one, able to focus the press corps on whatever it is she wishes to say that morning. Such a skill would prove invaluable to a legislative leader, allowing her to set the agenda and advance her priorities even from the minority.

I had not previously appreciated the early advantage Edwards might have in the early caucuses and primaries or the notion that being Senate Minority (possibly Majority) Leader might appeal to Clinton.

Spring Cleaning at Vox Baby

I've made a few changes to the sidebar of the blog--added a picture and disclaimer to the profile, added The Empty Cradle and Our Underachieving Colleges to the Recently Enjoyed section, and cleaned up the Blogroll. There were several deletions to be made--bloggers who looked like they might be on hiatus but really seem to have stopped posting.

There are two Dartmouth student blogs still there, and they are both at the top of their game: a group effort anchored by Andrew Seal at The Little Green Blog and Joe Malchow at Joe's Dartblog. They are both daily reads for me.

The big addition to the Blogroll is Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard and the CEA chairman for whom I had the pleasure to work in 2003-2004. He's been blogging up a storm as of late, on topics ranging from immigration to carbon taxes to Fannie Mae.

Netroots Growing on Limited Acreage?

Via Powerline, I am directed to "Hillary Clinton: Too Much of a Clinton Democrat?" by Markos Moulitsas of The Daily Kos in Sunday's Washington Post. There were two elements of his non-endorsement that struck me as very relevant to 2008.

The first is that the more left-wing elements of the Democratic base don't seem to be all that concerned about how far to the right they can extend their coalition. I got some personal experience with this when the Nonpartisan Social Security plan was released--the most extreme criticism was directed at Jeff Liebman, the co-author who had served in the Clinton administration, for being too far to the right. Here's an example from the op-ed:

Dean lost, but the point was made. No longer would D.C. insiders impose their candidates on us without our input; those of us in the netroots could demand a say in our political fortunes. Today, however, Hillary Clinton seems unable to recognize this new reality. She seems ill-equipped to tap into the Net-energized wing of her party (or perhaps is simply uninterested in doing so) and incapable of appealing to this newly mobilized swath of voters. She may be the establishment's choice, but real power in the party has shifted.

I don't know if the second sentence is an accurate statement. Kos got to vote for John Kerry in a losing candidacy. What success is he claiming?

But let's suppose that Kos is right in the last statement, that the real power in the party has shifted. That means he gets to dictate the Democrats' agenda, but that doesn't mean the Democrats win in 2008. That only happens if the candidate he backs can capture enough of the national vote, the one that includes the Independents and Republicans. The Clinton strategy is to start in the middle (the muddle?) and move to the extreme only as needed to pick up the win. It worked for Bill. Perhaps Hillary thinks it can work for her, too. Kos offers no strategy for capturing a majority. He seems disdainful of even having to try. That doesn't seem like a recipe for electoral success.

The second element of his op-ed that stands out is his accurate assessment of the danger of nominating candidates who cannot run on their recent accomplishments. He writes:

Yet staying away from big ideas seems to come naturally to Hillary Clinton. Perhaps first lady Clinton was so scarred by her failed health-care reform in the early 1990s that now Sen. Clinton shows no proclivity for real leadership as a lawmaker.

Afraid to offend, she has limited her policy proposals to minor, symbolic issues -- such as co-sponsoring legislation to ban flag burning. She doesn't have a single memorable policy or legislative accomplishment to her name. Meanwhile, she remains behind the curve or downright incoherent on pressing issues such as the war in Iraq.

In 2004, John Kerry could not point to a single, substantive piece of legislation that existed because of his leadership, after a legislative career of nearly two decades. Had there not been such a gaping hole in his resume, I think he would have run a more successful campaign. I don't see how a one-and-a-third term Senator Clinton stands a better chance on this dimension. It is not surprising that sitting members of the House and Senate are very infrequently elected to the Presidency. Governors, with records as heads of state-level executive branches, make for more compelling candidates.

So I think Kos is correct about the need to nominate someone with a record to run on, but I don't think he is doing the Democrats any favors by stipulating that the record has to be one that (merely) appeals to his part of the political spectrum.

Samwick at RadioEconomics.com

I recorded a podcast with James Reese of RadioEconomics.com, which is now available online. Here's the teaser:

SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 2006: In this interview with James Reese, Dr. Andrew Samwick gives an overview of the Social Security System. Topics covered include: What Social Security is and what is currently wrong with it & why it needs to be fixed. The Social Security Trust Fund. What are the most important things to resolve in order to “fix” Social Security? What is the "Nonpartisan Social Security Reform Plan?" How does this compromised reform package differ from what would be your own ideal Social Security reform package? Do you think this plan will be able to pass politically. Can you explain the impact of illegal immigrants on Social Security?

Enjoy! (Click here for the archive.)

The End of Winter

Winter is my term for teaching at Dartmouth. For me, teaching crowds out blogging in two ways. The first is time. Teaching pushes everything else aside, blogging included. The second is that teaching and blogging scratch the same itch--the desire for two-way communication of ideas. After today's exam, I expect the frequency of posting to pick up. In the meantime, here's the funniest idea that was communicated to me this Winter:

In Jerusalem, a journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, everyday, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out. She went to the Wailing Wall and there he was!

She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, she approached him for an interview. "I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. Sir, how long have you been coming to the Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and friendship."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a fucking wall."

Tell me about it.

Stitching a New Safety Net

So goes the title of the latest Econoblog, where Mark Thoma of Economist's View and I discuss the changing resources and expectations of social insurance. The teaser:

For many years, workers could manage their medical expenses with employer-provided health insurance and Medicare and look forward to underwriting their golden years with payments from a defined-benefit pension and Social Security.

But the landscape of social insurance is shifting. Many large corporations are moving their employees from traditional pensions to riskier 401(k)s and asking workers to pay more out of their own pockets for health insurance. At the same time, Social Security and Medicare, the two venerable entitlement programs, are facing growing demographic strains as the vast baby boom generation reaches retirement age.

The Wall Street Journal Online asked economist bloggers Mark Thoma and Andrew Samwick to explore how we how arrived at this point and discuss what workers and retirees might expect in the future, as the composition of the social safety net continues to shift.

Thanks to Mark for exchanging ideas. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Blogging

This weekend, we traveled an hour south to Keene, New Hampshire, site of the annual pumpkin festival. Although it only managed 22,153 carved jack-o-lanterns in the same place this year, it was quite a spectacle. And it was quite a showing for a town that had been inundated by floodwaters just two weeks earlier.

Blogsearch Technorati

The Return of Free Ice Cream

Brad DeLong remarked a while ago that the overhaul at Technorati seems to have undermined its usefulness as a blog tool. Its newfound slowness and unpredictability caused me to stop putting Technorati links on all of my posts. Via Brad and Barry Ritholtz, we discover that Google is now a purveyor of this free ice cream, and though the storefront is different, the product is quite delicious. Give either link a test run:

Google interface at blogsearch.google.com

Blogger interface at search.blogger.com

Has anyone found the code that allows us to link back to the search results for a specific page on a blog?